America’s liberal elitists, who look down on the discontented working class and put up a presidential candidate representing a failed Establishment, set the stage for Donald Trump’s victory, journalist John Pilger tells Dennis J Bernstein.
By Dennis J Bernstein
Despite Donald Trump’s long history of stiffing workers, dodging taxes and abusing women, he will become the 45th President of the United States, a remarkable turn of events that has a lot of liberals and Democrats scratching their heads and wondering how he could have beaten the powerful Clinton political/money machine.
One person who was not surprised was journalist and filmmaker John Pilger, who was born in Sydney, Australia, and now is based in London. Pilger has reported from all over the world, covering numerous wars, notably Vietnam. When he was in his 20’s, he became the youngest journalist to receive Britain’s highest award for journalism, Journalist of the Year, which he won twice. He also has an Emmy and his most recent book is Hidden Agendas and the New Rulers of the World.
Dennis Bernstein: I’m going to ask you later on about the new film, which I’m very excited about. But let’s begin with [the Nov. 8] victory over Clinton, by Trump. Were you surprised? What do you think was at the core of the Trump victory?
Journalist John Pilger (Wikipedia)
John Pilger: You know, I wasn’t surprised. Brexit undoubtedly helped this. I wasn’t surprised. I think I’m quite surprised by how decisive his victory is. But I must say I felt rather angry, and I think we probably expended enough anger on Trump. He’ll, no doubt, provide us with plenty of material coming up. But I think it’s time for people, so-called liberal people, to look in the mirror.
Who created Trump? Who created this disastrous election, so-called campaign? In my opinion the enablers of all of this was the liberal class, in the United States. The liberal class has refused to acknowledge, in its arrogance, the huge disaffection and discontent among ordinary people. And painting them in such broad strokes has been… what did Clinton call them?…”deplorables” and “irredeemable”? That’s really…